Technical Field
Exemplary embodiment(s) of the present disclosure relate to sanitary containers and, more particularly, to a hemodialysis wand holder for providing healthcare workers with a convenient means of storing hemodialysis pickup wands in a sanitary environment prior to use thereof.
Prior Art
In a patient suffering from temporary or permanent kidney failure, cleansing of the blood can be done with an artificial kidney machine; this is known as hemodialysis. Two plastic tubes, one connected to an artery and one to a vein, are implanted in the patient's arm or leg. During dialysis, which can take three to five hours per treatment, blood from the artery tube enters the machine and comes into contact with a thin membrane. Wastes from the blood pass through the membrane into circulating fluid on the other side of the membrane. The blood cells themselves cannot cross the membrane. The cleaned blood is then piped back into the patient through the vein tube.
In dialysis, a hemodialysis solution is prepared and passed through a dialyzer to extract contaminants from a patient's blood. Moreover, the dialyzer is disinfected prior to a treatment. It is known to produce the hemodialysis solution by dissolving a powder in water within the dialyzer by flowing water through a cartridge containing the powder. Generally, the powder is sodium bicarbonate. Thus, a liquid concentrate is prepared that will later be diluted with water to obtain the concentration required for hemodialysis. A dialysis pickup wand is also employed during hemodialysis. Currently, there is no convenient means of holding such wands in an organized and sanitary way.
Accordingly, a need remains for a sanitary container for hemodialysis wands and the like in order to overcome the above-noted shortcomings. The present invention satisfies such a need by providing an assembly that is convenient and easy to use, is durable yet lightweight in design, is versatile in its applications, and provides a more hygienic and safer way to keep dialysis wands readily available for use after they have been rinsed with de-ionized water than the impromptu methods that are currently used by dialysis centers and clinics